Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Basketball Beat Reporter
Head coach Tim Miles strolled menacingly up and down San Jose State’s bench in the waning minutes of SJSU’s 67-40 loss to Nevada. One arm folded over the other while a death stare remained in his unblinking eyes.
For good reason.
The Spartans (11-6, 2-2 MW) were dismantled and demoralized by the Wolf Pack (14-3, 4-0) in their second loss in a row this season last Saturday. Their first time experiencing back-to-back losses.
When asked how he plans to make sure the two-game skid doesn’t evolve into anything bigger, Miles bluntly replied, “We’ll have a great practice tomorrow morning at 10:30.”
Fast-forward to Monday afternoon and Miles recalled the brutal, yet necessary film session from that Sunday practice.
“Usually I clip out maybe 15-20 plays and then we watch the last eight or 10 minutes of the game. I think I clipped out 64 errors in the Nevada game,” said Miles. “It was a long film session and that just tells you whether it be offense, defense, lack of rebounding, not getting the loose basketballs.”
It’s the required grunt work to make sure SJSU’s best start since the 1980-81 season doesn’t end in the typically disastrous Spartan basketball fashion.
Nevada’s an early favorite to win the conference thus a win wasn’t expected, but it was the stagnancy and dispassion that were worrisome.
In other words, SJSU looked like the exact team Miles came to rebuild.
This situation is nothing new for Miles who’s referred to himself as “Coach F.E.M.A” because he only gets hired to fix disasters.
The remedies have changed since his rebuild days at Southwest Minnesota State two decades ago.
In practices following defeats he’s not having press drills with five on seven, limiting each player to two dribbles and making them run when they aren’t able to score.
“I’m probably not as brutal as I was back then,” chuckled Miles. “Those poor kids went through a lot of physical, emotional and mental endurement.”
The goal of Sunday and Monday practices are to address and make sure SJSU’s stagnant, sloppy and uninspired play from Saturday doesn’t bleed into Tuesday night’s matchup with rival Fresno State.
“It’s not like we just forgot about last year. We obviously have that in our head,” said team captain Alvaro Cardenas. “It was a heartbreaking loss.”
The matchup comes just 10 months and one day since the Spartans nearly handed the Bulldogs an embarrassing first round exit in the Mountain West tournament.
Considering Fresno State throttled SJSU by an average of 25 points in the previous two matchups and the Spartans 1-17 finished in conference play it was eye-opening the Bulldogs needed a buzzer-beat in overtime to win.
Eyes-widened even more following the game when Miles delivered his infamous line:
“Opponents enjoy it while it lasts because we are going to come back bigger, stronger and better.”
If you know anything about SJSU’s history this was … bold. To say the very least.
“He [Miles] was inspired for sure, but we were, too,” recalls former Spartan, Caleb Simmons.
There was palpable program buy-in for the first time in years. SJSU could’ve easily phoned it in and said, ‘We’ll get em’ next year’ and no-one would’ve faulted them for it.
But Tuesday night’s matchup will begin a quest to see how truly bought-in SJSU is to the rebuild process.
“‘How did you show up on Sunday ready to practice?'” said Miles. “How did you show up on Monday morning where we have a super early practice?’ That’s the buy-in.”
The shift
The Spartans entered last Tuesday’s matchup against Boise State with an entirely different conversation surrounding them.
With wins over UNLV and Colorado State, SJSU had a winning record in Mountain West play for the first time in program history. Not to mention, the UNLV win was its first time ever winning a Mountain West opener.
Confetti rained down in the form of national pundits declaring Miles was on path to be the national coach of the year.
The moods shifted, however, after losing on a buzzer-beater to Boise State and the disastrous 26-point loss to Nevada.
“There was some buzz around us and now it’s like, ‘Oh they lost two in a row.’ We work too hard to be thinking about that type of stuff,” said Cardenas.
Granted both teams are in the top 35 of the NET, but it’s the depths of the Nevada loss that are worrisome.
It was the least amount of points scored in the Miles era and included a 25-0 run from Nevada to end the first half.
“I really felt for the first time maybe all season we approached the Nevada game with very little edge and intensity,” said Miles. “We aren’t a gifted enough team to go out and decide, ‘Oh it’s time to play’ we have to come out on full alert ready to roll.”
Amongst the slew of box score warts, none were as visually gruesome as the Spartans allowing 14 offensive rebounds and turning the ball over 20 times while forcing just 10.
“You just can’t get walloped in one facet of the game like that,” said Miles. “That was disappointing.”
The Spartans’ -5.4 turnover margin sits dead last nationwide out of 352 teams.
“Certainly the turnover thing is something we’ve known all along and it’s not just a couple guys,” said Miles.
Six Spartans finished with multiple turnovers, while star guard Omari Moore tied his season-high with six.
Moore averaged 22 points in the previous three conference games, but finished with just 10 points and a plus minus -24.
His co-captain Cardenas was the only starter who didn’t score.
“He and I knew we didn’t play our best game … We weren’t able to get downhill or we weren’t aggressive enough to create for our teammates. So we got to do a better job of that,” said Cardenas.
Finding that spark of aggression won’t come any easier against Fresno State (6-9, 2-2 MW) than it was against Nevada.
The Bulldogs 63 points allowed per game is the second-lowest in the conference.
“This is a very important game for our team not only because we lost to Fresno three times last year, but because showing the kind of character this team has and how we can come back from a loss like that is going to be interesting to see,” said Cardenas.